Cult Film and Experimental Music

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Fragmented Frequencies August 2017

Whilst every producer at some time in their career makes a soundtrack to an imagined film, imagined soundscapes are a little rarer. This is where sound art and exoticism combine, creating an ethnographic hyperreal representation of an imagined faraway place. Filmmaker and sound artist Carlos Casas’ ‘Pyramid of Skulls’ (Discrepant) was inspired by the people of Pamir, Tajikistan and Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorov’s notion of a ‘common task’ for humanity. His work is a re-imagined memory of his 6-month stay in the region back in 2015, with snatches of music and found sound, creating a collage of sounds that have never previously existed together By selecting, layering and processing, Casas has crafted a highly personal exotic world that’s full of possibilities and open to all manner of interpretation.

Between the strange obscure sounds and textures of this and also Discrepant label boss Gonçalo F Cardoso’s recent Visions Congo LP, there’s these gentle unexpected moments of bliss, where everything coalesces into gentle rollicking hypnotic rhythms. Cardoso’s recordings in the great lakes region in Uganda, Congo (DRC), Tanzania and Zanzibar form the basis of Visions Congo. Again, it’s an imagined fourth world where snatches of thumb piano or percussion exist alongside field recordings, newscasts, choirs and cicadas. It’s exotica musique concrete and it’s fascinating.

Finally, if you’ve been enjoying the sound design of the Twin Peaks revival, Lynch’s producer Dean Hurley has just released a collection of ambient soundscapes used in the show. You can find Anthology Resource Vol.1 on his bandcamp.